Bart van Melik, a meditation teacher and psychotherapist, shares a four-word Buddhist teaching: "keep calmly knowing change." He explores why attuning to impermanence can bring peace. Short practices for introducing mindfulness to children are discussed. They also examine complaining as connection, the idea of useless speech, and the importance of community and embodiment.
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Keep Calm And Know Change
Keep calmly knowing change distills mindfulness into four actions: keep (remember), calmly (receptive attitude), knowing (awareness), change (impermanence).
Bart credits Ven. Analayo's summary and connects it to the Buddha's last words urging wholehearted practice of impermanence.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Mourning Made Impermanence Real
Bart recounts his first real mourning when a close friend died and how powerful change required time to sit with it.
He uses the personal loss to illustrate that impermanence can be terrifying yet practicing awareness of change is freeing.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Use External Breath For Young Kids
When introducing meditation to young children, use external anchors like watching a baby's belly rise and fall rather than insisting on formal sitting.
Bart used his son's belly-breath observation as a gentle, playful object of mindfulness.
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If you struggle with the terrifying reality that everything changes, this conversation is for you.
Bart van Melik is a meditation teacher, psychotherapist, and our Teacher of the Month for January. In this live session recorded on Zoom with subscribers to the 10% with Dan Harris app, Bart and Dan explore one of Bart's favorite teachings: "Keep calmly knowing change"—four words that supposedly distill all 84,000 of the Buddha's teachings.
We talk about:
Why attuning to the flow of things brings peace (even though change is terrifying)—and what the Buddha said on his deathbed about impermanence
How to introduce meditation to kids without making it seem difficult or boring
The three dimensions of mindfulness: internal (your own mind), external (noticing other people's breath on the subway), and relational (the field we're all co-creating together)
Whether connecting through venting and complaining is harmless or something to examine more closely
"Useless speech" (sampappalāpa)—the Pali term for saying stuff that doesn't really matter, and why the urge is often just "look at me"
Why Bart is still on this path after all these years: community
Bart closes with a beautiful dedication about coming home to the body and appreciating that we show up in community.
These live sessions happen every week in the app 10% with Dan Harris, where you can meditate with Dan and guest teachers and ask questions in real time. Get the app at danharris.com—there's a free 14-day trial.
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